Thursday, August 14, 2008

George Ellis

George Ellis was born 1839 in England.

George left England in the late 1850s and immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in central Michigan. By 1860 George was working as a day laborer and living at the Butterfield Hotel in Lansing’s First Ward. In early 1861 he was probably still residing in Lansing when he was reported as a member of the Lansing militia company called the “Williams’ Rifles”, whose members would serve as the nucleus of Company G.

George was 22 years old and still living in Lansing when he enlisted as Third Sergeant in Company G on May 10, 1861; he may have been related to Eugene Ellis. By June of 1862 George was Orderly Sergeant for the company, and he was shot in the hip on August 29, 1862, at Second Bull Run. On September 2 Homer Thayer of Company G wrote that Ellis had been wounded in the hip and Thayer thought it “probably mortal.”

In fact, George died as a result of his wounds on September 2, at Washington, DC, and was buried on September 3 in the Military Asylum cemetery (Soldier's Home National cemetery), section C no. 3255 (see photo G-640).

No pension seems to be available.

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